With the election now over, it is once again safe to talk about the economy and jobs. Now that it is not a campaign issue, it’s back to reality…

In other words (if I understand), we (the news media) could not discuss reality during the campaign, lest it be used by Obama’s opponents to hurt his chances of re-election. Now that he’s back in, we can. But not really:

At the Associated Press, aka the Administration’s Press, the post-election search for an explanation clearly had two important constraints. First: do not blame the Obama administration or the federal government for anything. Second: find something to blame which appears to be plausible and can’t be immediately refuted.

Of course, AP’s explanation is anything but plausible:

For decades, science fiction warned of a future when we would be architects of our own obsolescence, replaced by our machines. … [T]he future has arrived.

In other words, stay firmly on rekaB Street, lest the news shatter the icons of authority that keep us “safe,” not matter how out of touch with reality that leaves us. Shades of Hillary Clinton.

In the wake of a controversial cartoon published in the Sunday Times of London, massive crowds of angry Jewish protestors gathered in Hyde Park yesterday and, whipped into a fervor by local rabbis, took to the streets of London.

Incited by the inflammatory, blood libel-themed cartoon–which was released on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and featured a hook-nosed caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a wall using Palestinian blood as mortar–the crowds descended on the Harvey Nichols on Sloane Street, where they broke store windows and set fire to the Charlie Allen and Ted Baker collections. The mob, unabated, next stormed the Royal Portrait Gallery, tearing down and defacing the centuries’ old collection of British kings and queens.

“We left the new portrait of Kate Middleton up” said Gerald Stein of Stamford Hill, “it’s offensive enough on its own.”

The indispensable PMW has just published a translation of an article in Ma’an, the Palestinian news agency publication. PMW emphasizes the vicious anti-Semitism of the piece (Israel and “the Jews” are interchangeable) which is pervasive in Palestinian media, and the fact that Ma’an is supported by the EU, UNESCO, and the Dutch and Danish governments, presumably to encourage their journalism which, we all know, is equally professional everywhere and therefore supportive of civil society.

I’d like to emphasize a different aspect of the text, namely the profound role that projection plays in its formulations about “the Jews.” Indeed, if it were not that they have insulated themselves entirely from real-world feedback (with the help of their European and global allies), they might have hesitated to publish so deeply embarrassing – indeed humiliating – a piece of self-revelation. But then again, projection lies at the heart of the anti-Semitic mind, as in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Text bolded by PMW, my comments added throughout.

“Israel is Trembling”by Sawsan Najib Abd Al-Halim

“We’re used to seeing vampires in Dracula movies, where the murderer and the vampire act in the dead of night, and as soon as dawn breaks, the murderer disappears and hides during the day.

The brave warrior, who at the very least has moral values, fights in the daytime. In all wars, in all eras, honorable nations conducted their battles during the day and slept at night. But has Israel even a trace of morality?

A brave warrior is proud when he confronts another [warrior] as brave as he, and the more he is struck, the stronger he grows, proud in his struggle and respectful of his adversary. But since Jews are – as our grandparents said of them – sons of death (expression of contempt, meaning ‘a coward,’ -Ed.), they are too cowardly to confront an enemy face to face, especially if their enemy is as well armed as they…

All of this coming from Palestinians, who have never fielded an army, Arabs who, despite being better armed and vastly more numerous, have repeatedly lost to Israelis since 1948, is historically risible. But it does illustrate an element in the pathology of Palestinian honor-shame culture. The description here of the true warrior (which has no historical example among Arabs in the modern world, and on the contrary, in their acts of deliberately targeting civilians, has countless counter-examples), is a classic depiction of the values of an honor-shame culture:

A brave warrior is proud when he confronts another [warrior] as brave as he, and the more he is struck, the stronger he grows, proud in his struggle and respectful of his adversary.

During the US presidential campaign I dropped my subscription to New Republic. I didn’t do any background research, I just found the drum-beat of pro-Obama, anti-Romney propaganda too tedious to bother with (much less pay for). Now I find out that this is because the new owner and self-anointed editor-in-chief, Chris Hughes, is a Obama campaign loyalist whose understanding of journalism, much less the storied history of The New Republic, leads much to be desired.

Not according to TNR contributing editor, Jonathan Chait, in a scathingly sarcastic post entitled “Hitler Alive and Well, Owning Liberal Magazine” (HT: Yair Rosenberg). Chait views the issue as an absurd tempest in a teapot by an embarrassingly alarmist and unrealiable source. And it may just be the long overdue cleaning up of a list, eliminating the names of writers who no longer contribute. After all, Leon Weiseltier is still there and (even) criticizing Obama and his new global “light footprint.”

But it may also be part of an alignment with a Term2Obama who will may raise the demands of journalistic loyalty. Whatever the case, under Hughes the decline in independent thought has been pretty noticeable.

The journalism in these pages will strive to be free of party ideology or partisan bias, although it will showcase passionate writing and will continue to wrestle with the primary questions about our society.

Alas. It’s not a good sign when the new editor in chief engages in unconscious parody.

A recent spat in the blogosphere raises issues worth considering. After Jeffrey Goldberg informed his ample readership that President Obama believed that Israel did not understand its own best interests – a belief that I think it’s safe to say he shares – Lori Lowenthal Marcus quoted Dan Senor tweeting that two American officials had admitted that Obama, via Goldberg, was trying to influence the elections in Israel. In other words, the “Israel” that doesn’t know its own best interests was a reference to Bibi, whom Obama specifically dissed in Goldberg’s account, and reportedly Obama makes these kinds of remarks frequently to those around him.

Senor’s tweet drew response tweets, among others from both Goldberg and Beinart, while Dan Friedman at The Israeli Front Line, posted a far more aggressive comment in introduction to Marcus’ article about Goldberg, chiding Marcus for her too-subdued a depiction of the journalist who reported Obama’s thoughts to the public.

In her Jewish Press piece today Lori Lowenthal Marcus asks a legitimate question: Will Congress Investigate Obama’s Attempt to Derail Bibi? First, the answer is no. But Marcus yaws way off-course when she gives short shrift to Goldberg, describing him as “a centrist liberal Jewish writer.” Indeed that’s his “cover” and an image Goldberg carefully cultivates, but it is no accident that he’s one of the few errand boys Obama uses to get his poison delivered to Israel and the USA Jewish community. The plain truth is Jeffrey Goldberg is a Jewish sewer pipe for Obama. And he’s loving every minute of it because, like T. Friedman, Beinhart and the J Street crowd, he wants to “punish” Israel. – Dan Friedman

I heard Hilary Clinton’s angry remarks about American dead on the radio the other day and couldn’t help but think rekaB Street.

With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they would go kill some Americans? What difference — at this point — does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.

What an extraordinary statement! (And note the complete reversal disguised as “the point” in the final sentence.)

What an aggressive assertion of a complete lack of interest in understanding what’s going on. At least, she could have given the two plausible scenarios – protest over a movie, or well-planned Jihadi attack on the anniversary of 9-11. Instead, she used a ridiculous alternative – “guys out for a walk.”

It’s as if, faced with objections to the plausibility scenario that she was offering, the Secretary of State lashed out against looking closely. In so doing, of course, she pitched to our sensibilities, invoking the sanctity of life, of American life, over which she had already shed a tear: so greatly do we mourn, that it’s sacrilegious to inquire to closely why they died.

On the contrary, it matters why it was done, precisely in order “to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.” Indeed, it matters hugely: it is the hallmark of any investigation that aims at inspiring a learning curve to look precisely into the details, unflinchingly.

Hence, our suspicions, as responsible citizens, should be aroused by anyone who told us that it doesn’t matter. Even if one wants to claim emotional stress, in which, under the rude questioning of Senator Ron Johnson, Hillary used a ploy to win that exchange, we’re left with the residue of that maneuver, namely a humiliatingly foolish statement. (This is not sexist, men also use ploys and say stupid things when on the defensive.) But when you do it in public, and you’re the Secretary of State, you do have to keep your wits about you when you fight back. This “comeback” was, alas, witless.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Apparently the indignation at Clinton’s call to auto-stupefaction and the analytic dissection of the folly behind the remarks took place largely “on the right,” while, in the mainstream media, Clinton’s remarks were greeted with great admiration. “Good for Hillary,” she showed those guys on Capitol Hill a thing or two.

Here Diane Sawyer and Martha Raddatz team up to present her “riveting” testimony.

It would be harder to find a better illustration of the workings of rekaB Street than to cheer on such a principled – indignant! -refusal to examine the evidence. There must be a Simpsons or Family Guy or South Park routine that illustrates this kind of behavior. And apparently, alas, we need a term to designate the performers of such triumphalist folly.

I can’t find the origin of this piece of folk wisdom and it’s apparently a bit old, but it’s still a pretty choice definition.

There’s an annual contest at the Griffith University, Australia, calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term.

This year’s term was ‘political correctness’.

The winning student wrote:

“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end.”

As noted in an earlier post, the Société nationale de journalistes, France Télévisions (SNJ) sent out an appeal to members to come show solidarity with Charles Enderlin at the trial. Below is the text, with commentary about the deeply superficial nature of the claims. Basically, the observer is left with the following question: are they dishonest or truly (and inexcusably) uninformed, or, to paraphrase Karsenty on Enderlin, they are certainly misleading their readers; but are they misled? In any case, clueless on rekaB Street seems an apt depiction of their existential condition.

Note that, neither here, nor below, is there any link to some serious arguments in favor of Enderlin. Presumably, when they write “unjustly accused, pursuied, and harrassed…” they have looked at the evidence and found the criticism completely wanting. Or is this just the rhetoric of people who defend their own without examining the evidence? Shades of the pre-modern trope: “my side right or wrong”, or, in the language of the French “du communautarisme journalistique” [partisan journalism].

They themselves admit that this report on al Durah went around the world and serves to this day as a [valid] reference. But as to whether it was inaccurate seems of no interest to these alleged journalists, allegedly committed to principles of proper behavior.

Again, the evidence is of no interest. Charles is the symbol of quality information, which they, as journalists, support. Again the question: are they superficial fools? or are they intentionally dishonest?

Yesterday was the sixth hearing in the saga of France 2 and Charles Enderlin suing Philippe Karsenty for defamation in the French courts. In some senses it was something of an anti-climax. In others it was an amazing example of the clash between Baker and rekaB Streets. Indeed, the Société des journalistes (SNJ) and SNJ de France Télévisions both called on members to show their support for Enderlin, who was valiantly defending himself against Karsenty’s legal aggression, when in fact it is Enderlin and France2 who are using the courts to bully Karsenty into silence. Shades of Tuvia Grossman: we know who the aggressor must be, so we’re rallying around our wounded David, even when he’s a embarrassingly dim Goliath.

Karsenty went in loaded for bear, with a mock-up reconstruction of the site at Netzarim, and an extensive PPP full of videos. He went through all the evidence, starting with an very nice series of illustrations using the rushes to show how France2/Enderlin consistently use clearly staged footage as “news.” He then went through the entire dossier concerning the actual al Durah footage. At times it seemeda bit too exhaustive, and the judges seemed irritated by the PPP, but the arguments were excellent, and reflected a forensic mind that engages in identifying clues, and deriving conclusions from an analysis of the evidence.

Enderlin, on the other hand, seemed either completely out of his depth, or just supremely unconcerned. He did nothing but repeat things he’s said (and written) a thousand times, and when it was France2’s chance to respond to Karsenty, he sat passively while his lawyer showed five clips, four of which were just unedited replays of France2 news broadcasts on the matter (including totally irrelevant news about the tunnel under Mont Blanc and the Olympics in Sydney). It was as if they believed that in merely restating themselves, they proved themselves right. After Karsenty’s presentation, however, it was a stunning display of rekaB Street: the very scenes he had deconstructed as fakes, they were again playing as real. Even the judges seemed amused. The grand finale was Jamal al Durah showing his wounds just after Karsenty had showed that the wounds were not from the event (later confirmed by the medical forensic expert).

Enderlin seemed completely alone. He and his lawyer, Maitre Amblard, chic and shallow as ever, were alone at the dock (not even Guillaume Clement-Weill), no one from France2, whose new CEO was questioned about the al Durah affair by a senator at the time of his confirmation, and has, apparently decided to let Enderlin carry this one alone. Indeed, when France2’s “side” tried to show the videos, there was a technical fiasco which took 20 minutes to resolve (Karsenty even offered to show the footage they were having trouble with), trying the patience of the judges, before then trying their intelligence with meaningless material. Even Enderlin, in a passing glimmer of intelligence, seemed bored with his own side’s argument.

For those of us familiar with the material, it seemed like a rout. I even had a momentary flash of sympathy for how pathetic Enderlin was. In any serious court of informed and intelligent judgment, this was a romp: Karsenty sliced France2 to pieces, and France2 responded by putting the severed pieces back up on the screen as if they were whole.

But that means nothing in terms of the verdict. For the first time, the “Avocat generale” who speaks for the Parquet was critical of Karsenty, and chided him for his lack of prudence in criticizing Enderlin, emphasizing that the court was not here to decide the historical questions (i.e., what happened), but the question of Karsenty’s good faith (it being uncontested that his criticism of Enderlin was defamation of his honor). Given how – at least in the words of some major figures in the Jewish community – French justice is “politicized,” how much the whole establishment – media, politicians, judges – is locked up (verouillé), it’s perfectly possible that on April 3, the judges will decide in favor of the plaintiff, France2.

But that would just mean that one more court has planted its flag firmly on rekaB Street, and that the victims, in addition to Karsenty, will be the fabric of civil society in France, where citizens cannot criticize a rogue press lest it harm their unearned reputation.

Participated in an interesting conversation yesterday between someone trying to make the point that the political culture of the Arab/Muslim world was far to the “right” of anything we Westerners can understand, that a majority of the public holds opinions that we would consider fascist, war-mongering and racist if it were a Westerner holding such opinions, and someone trying to deny the evidence as best he could, to preserve an image of the Muslim world that corresponded to what we liberals would like to hope existed over there.

As I listened to his responses, I realized that he kept coming up the plausible (and not-so-plausible) counter-arguments, basically anything that could deflect the evidence brought to bear. For example, the citing of a poll of Palestinian opinion immediately brought skepticism about its reliability. In fact, if anything, the poll is probably unreliable in understating rather than exaggerating the degree of radical “right-wing” attitudes (“what was taken by force can only be taken back by force”).

Al Durah Mural. Underneath: “What was taken by force can only be regained by force.”
(This is also what is written on the wall above the father and son at Netzarim Junction.)

As I thought about it, I realized that he was not at all interested in figuring out what’s going on, but only in defending his position (which was not so much a liberal position as a liberal projection). Now, he has an excuse: he’s young, and for him, every argument is a contest he needs to win. But this same technique also describes one of the main ways our journalists contribute to our being on rekaB Street: they’re not looking for real explanations, for real understanding, they’re looking for the explanations that support a “liberal” outlook — e.g., the Gazans voted for Hamas not because it’s a genocidal hate-mongering organization that promises to restore Palestinian and Muslim honor by exterminating Israel (let’s not talk about that), but because of Fatah corruption. They, like my young friend, are looking for the least implausible explanations, not looking for a real understanding.

CAMERA has an interesting list of resolutions for journalists in 2013 in which they suggest journalists cease to systematically misinform their readers about the Middle East conflict. As I go down the list, two things occur to me: 1) in your dreams will journalists stop doing this since it would make them too “pro-Zionist” (no matter how accurate most of the requests are); and 2) what an extraordinary list of examples in which journalists are so committed to getting the story wrong… repeatedly, consistently, perversely.

But since journalists consider themselves a force of nature, they just think we should learn to live with it.

Of course, that may seem okay to journalists when the only people they’re sticking it to are the Israelis. But… what about the Western public they’re misinforming? What about the Jihad they’re enabling?

While some immediately compared Israel to Nazis in the aftermath of the incident (above photo from demonstration in Paris on October 6, 2000 at which the cry “Death to Jews!” was heard in a European capital for the first time since the Holocaust), it took the “Jenin Massacre” to make the comparisons go mainstream.

“I have to wonder about people who compare Israelis to Nazis, I ask myself, why do they hate Israel, which is, after all, the Jewish state, so much?” Elie Wiesel

• Greta Duisenberg, Dutch, wife of the European Central Bank (ECB) chief Wim Duisenberg, called Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank as “worse than the Nazi rule in Holland.” (January 2003)

• In an article in French newspaper “Le Monde” titled “Israel, Palestine: The Cancer” the authors wrote that Jews, a “dominating and self-assured people” who are “behaving as a superior race” and who “were the victims of a pitiless order are imposing their pitiless order on the Palestinians. The Jewish victims of inhumanity are displaying a terrible inhumanity.” (June 2002)

• Antiwar rallies in the West feature flags and posters that equate Israel and Jews with Nazi Germany

• Portuguese commentator Sousa Tavares wrote in newspaper PÚBLICO that: “If there is a World War III, it will be because of Israel … and of its attempt to solve the Palestinian problem, not through any peace accord, but through, you have to excuse me, a ‘final solution’ – the political, civic and, if necessary, human extermination of Palestinians.” (November 2003)

• Italian survey found that close to 40 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that “the Israeli government is perpetrating a full-fledged genocide and is acting with the Palestinians the way the Nazis did with the Jews.” (January 2004)

• The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) 2004 Witness Report concluded that Israelis were trying to “rid the land of Palestinians” just as “Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews.”

• German survey reveals that 51% of Germans believe that Israel’s present-day treatment of the Palestinians is equivalent to the Nazi atrocities against European Jews during World War II. (December 2004)

• Anthony Lipmann, in a comment piece in The Spectator (UK) compares the battle for Jenin to Auschwitz. (January 2005)

The Leconte-Jeambar episode represents one of the key moments in the al Durah affair, and an index of how rapidly the gate-keepers closed ranks around Enderlin. It raises all kinds of ethical questions, most of which got crowded out by red herrings.

The quality of comment to my last post prompts me to move it here and invite people to address the legal issues, all the while keeping the larger issue of lethal journalism (Durah Journalism).

In a comment, Martin Malliet and E.G. further discuss the trial.

On the burden of proof in the Enderlin vs Karsenty trial

This question is only confusing because the plaintiff is a news agency being accused by the defendant of bringing out an untruthful story.

If we forget about the news agency, it is indeed right that the defendant must “prove his innocence” by proving that his accusation against the plaintiff was founded; it wouldn’t be right to ask the plaintiff to prove a counter-factual, namely that he is NOT what the defendant accused him to be (or to have done or said).

With the plaintiff being a news agency (in the business of bringing out truthful stories it can back up with proof) accused by the defendant of having brought out an untruthful story, the same rule starts to look strange, because it means that the defendant must now “prove his innocence” by proving a counter-factual (that the story is NOT true), whereas it should now be easy for the plaintiff to prove what isn’t a counter-factual anymore (that the story is true and that he can back it up with proof).

Frank Van Dun has two articles on natural law jurisprudence that are relevant, starting with the insight that your reputation or credit isn’t your property (it only exists in the judgment of others):

“Against Libertarian Legalism: a comment on Kinsella and Block” (2003)
“Natural Law and the Jurisprudence of Freedom” (2004)

(Bibliography with links at http://rothbard.be/artikels/350-bibliografie-van-dun)

PS: The wording in the verdict by the Cour de Cassation “that a court cannot help the accused prove his innocence” is of course very strange, as the whole purpose of justice is to protect the innocent. But in this type of case (libel suit) it makes sense to say that the accused “must prove his innocence”. But that’s not what I remember having read. I remember that the point was that the defendant must prove that he had sufficient ground for making his accusation at the time when he made it, and that evidence obtained after that date was in any case irrelevant. And I think Karsenty himself somewhere said that even if Enderlin today admitted his fraud, theoretically he could still sue Karsenty for libel back in 2004.

This question of what he knew when he wrote seems to be a major focus of the trial. But instead, it should be, as E.G. points out below, about whether a major news agency should be using the technicalities of the court system to shut down criticism.

In response to the previous post, reader Martin J. Malliet wrote the following about the upcoming trial in Paris. Since this trial, scheduled for hearing represents an important mile-marker in the now-over-twelve-year-long festering problem of al Durah and its profoundly noxious impact on the West, it’s important to become aware of the issues. Here below, Martin’s excellent comments with further reflections by me. Further remarks welcome.

The accusation of ‘bad journalism’ (misrepresenting the facts of the IDF’s responsibility) against France2/Enderlin should have been brought to the court by the IDF themselves. Or otherwise by somebody who could claim to have been unlawfully harmed by the bad journalism, such as an Israeli citizen being harmed by the false depiction of a government that is representing him.

At this point, I think the most valuable person to complain before the courts, including the international court, would be a Muslim who, radicalized into a genocidal Jihadi ideology with the use of the al Durah footage (subject of previous post), could sue France2 and (if the courts rule against Karsenty), the French Courts for the damage done to Muslim culture in France, which is now so far down the Jihadi “slippery slope,” that when Muhammad Merah, to revenge the Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers, kills little Jewish school-girls in cold blood, and a significant part of the French Muslim community considers him a hero in the “struggle.”

Now the trial was brought about indrectly by a French citizen (Karsenty): not directly by Karsenty’s complaining about the bad journalism of his French public news agency (France2/Enderlin), but indirectly by France2/Enderlin complaining about a defamatory statement made by Karsenty on the bad journalism of France2/Enderlin.

This indirect strategem was always risky, because it involved a reversal of the burden of proof: the trial wasn’t anymore about the accusation of BAD JOURNALISM (to which the defendent France2/Enderlin would have had to respond by proving that their journalism was not bad), it was about the ACCUSATION of bad journalism by someone who didn’t claim to be harmed by it (to which the defendant Karsenty had to respond by proving that his accusation was legitimate).

From the first court decision one may have the impression that this reversal of the burden of proof was not handled very well by Karsenty and his lawyers:

“The impact of these accusations is reinforced by the use (twice) of the word “fraud” and by the accusation of a “hoax,” which implies, NOT A CULPABLE RECKLESSNESS, BUT THE DELIBERATE INTENT OF MISLEADING OTHERS by broadcasting images that did not reflect reality (“a false report” according to “film experts” who have “confirmed our conclusions.”) Such accusations clearly damage the honor and reputation of their object, even more so when the persons thus described are employed in informing the public, such as in the case of the journalist Charles Enderlin or France 2.”

It would seem to me that if Karsenty had limited his accusation of bad journalism to ‘culpable recklessness’, it would have been strong enough to make his point, and it would not have opened the door for a discussion on his having sufficient proof for the stronger accusation of ‘deliberate intent to mislead’. Or he should at least have argued that ‘culpable recklessness’ on behalf of a professional public news agency is the same as the news agency’s culpable act of misleading itself (or of letting itself be misled by its sources), and thereby in the end of culpably misleading others.

This is more or less what Karsenty wrote in the original article. I am not really in a position to comment on the legal issues. I used to be (thought I was) good at legal issues, but this case has baffled me from the outset. What I would say here in terms of the larger discussion which I think we need to engage in on as large a scale as possible, is that the issues here concern the accusation of “conspiracy theory,” which I think inhibits many from even touching this topic.

If you think arguing it’s staged, is arguing a conspiracy (e.g., CE and Derfner and many), then you believe that the “conspiracy theorists” (e.g., PK and I) think Enderlin did it knowingly, on purpose, and that a wide range of conspirators were necessary to pull off such a coup, to fool “the whole world.” I’d argue that the pathetic aspect of the entire episode is how cheap the fake, how transparent its deliberate deception on the one hand, and how stunningly gullible CE and the rest of the mainstream western news media proved to be. It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a pyramid of (misplaced) trust, CE in his cameraman Talal, and everyone else in CE. And if it weren’t so tragically wrong-headed to persist (here’s signs of a conspiracy to keep the lid on, to maintain the “honor” of CE and the French media), it’s actually full of comedy.